Josh Anstey’s Blog

Hello all BANT & Inspiration Room Readers,

It is an honour to be named in the Top 50 Australian Marketing Blogs List.

JoshAnstey.com is about to go through a major redesign.

What is going to change?

• Awesome new layout
• Great new content - LOTS OF IT!

Thanks for visiting my blog.

Please subscribe to the RSS Feed, and make sure you come back soon to see all the great changes that are in the works.

For anyone that missed it, you can read the post ‘Welcome to Australia’s Marketing Blogosphere‘ or you can read the ‘BANT.com.au Edition on page 38 here‘

If you have any suggestions, comments or feedback, please leave a comment on this post or email me.

Welcome again, and thanks for coming by!

Josh

During the breakfast with Jason Calacanis, I had the opportunity to quickly interview Jason and I asked him 5 quick questions.

Again, we were streaming this and recording this on Jason’s UStream Account.

Jason gave incredible answers that were really informative, and with so much experience and knowledge.

Here is – Josh Anstey 5 Questions, asking Jason Calacanis

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/428548

Yesterday was the first day of CeBIT Australia 2008.

I spent most of the day walking around checking out the show and the many businesses exhibiting. It was quite interesting and it is always good to see the new technology.

I have to be honest, I didn’t find too much of the technology that new or innovative. This is probably because we have so much access to the latest innovation via the web, but still it would have been good to see some more innovation. Hopefully we will see more next year.

I went to a talk about Social Networking, and how to use this for customer relationship management. This was really interesting, and beneficial. It’s amazing how social networking has developed. I also met up with two of my twitter buddies, @Alegrya & @RichardGiles.

I was hanging out in the ‘bloggerzone’, and met Jason Calacanis and Tyler Crowley from Mahalo. See below for a bio.

It was so great to meet Jason & Tyler. We had a good chat about the web, Australia’s IT industry and a few other topics of interest. They then invited me to have breakfast with them the following morning. I will discuss this in the next post.

Overall, the first day of CeBIT was interesting, and the highlight was definitely meeting Jason Calacanis & Tyler Crowley.

Jason Calacanis Bio:
Jason Calacanis is an internet entrepreneur and blogger. He is now the CEO of Mahalo and is one of the leaders in the internet world. He founded Weblogs inc. which was then bought by AOL, and was later appointed the General Manager of Netscape. Other ventures of Jason include Sequoia Capital which has been a driving force behind so many of the tech and web businesses we know so well today. Jason has also co-founded TechCrunch40, which was later changed to TechCrunch50 with Michael Arrington from TechCrunch. Jason is definitely one of the web world leaders.
Jason Calacanis in Wikipedia

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I am a subscriber of Marketing Magazine in Australia, and have been one for about a year now.
The magazine is great as it provides a range of marketing information in all different areas as well as practical case studies.

Marketing Magazine just ran a promotion that started at Easter, and it was a really clever example of direct marketing. (I suppose you would expect Marketing Magazine to run a clever campaign).

Each subscriber received an easter egg in the mail, and if it had a gold ticket you won a prize.

As you have guessed by now, I opened mine to find a golden ticket. I called the number and won a free movie ticket. (Yes, while I opened it the song from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory went through my head – ‘I’ve got a golden ticket’).

Anyway, the main message from this was the really clever effective direct marketing campaign that Marketing Magazine was running.

For all the marketers out there – think of a simple effective way you can create a direct marketing campaign with your current market.

Let me know what you think of.

Good luck!

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Today I was a guest blogger on LiveCrunch. Here is the article that I guest blogged.

As consumers of the technological age, we are always striving to get access to information when we want it, where we want it, on the device of our choice, and quicker than ever before.

As a result, this has seen the invention of web enabled mobile phones, allowing us full access to our emails and the internet. Well known examples include the BlackBerry and the iPhone.

I came across this article on ReadWriteWeb called, “Is the Mobile Web Dead? Some Mobile Entrepreneurs Say Yes”, and as an entrepreneur I was really surprised to read such a title.

After reading the article, comments and the original post that it linked in more depth (‘The end of Mowser’, by Russel Beattie), I came to understand that Russel believes the current state of mobile applications no longer has the traffic.

The introduction of the iPhone has lifted the already high expectations of users, and as consumers, we now require a clean friendly mobile web experience, that is emulates the web experience we have on our PC’s and notebooks.

This is a very interesting idea and the idea that we are always striving to get more out of our devices is great.
So, is the mobile web dead? I don’t think so. I think it has only just taken off, and we are going to see some exciting things to come.

There are two important lessons to learn from this article:
1. Don’t believe the first thing you read in an article. Make sure you read the comments, and make sure you follow through other links in the articles to read more
2. The future of the mobile web is approaching, so if you have an idea, be entrepreneurial and give it a go!

Related posts:

• Are you addicted to your BlackBerry?
• iPhone or BlackBerry?

I would like to thank Majo from LiveCrunch for giving me this opportunity to write a guest blogging post.

Click here to read the post on LiveCrunch.

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Darren at ProBlogger has unofficially announced that today, Monday 14th April is Blogger Appreciation Day.

The aim of the day is for bloggers to encourage each other and give each other that extra bit of motivation.

As Darren said,

We’re in it together, blogging is about collaboration and together going further than we can by ourselves - so why not help another blogger today by shooting them a word of encouragement, a pep talk, a congratulations, an idea to help them improve or some other positive constructive message. Better still, do it publicly on your blog and tell the world about another blogger who you appreciate.

So I would like to thank all the other bloggers out there for supporting me.

Here is a quote of motivation for all bloggers out there:

“Motivation is what gets your started. Habit is what keeps you going.”

Happy Blogger Appreication Day Everyone!

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I read an article today on the Ninemsn Money Website called, ‘Are you addicted to your Blackberry?’

The article definitely criticises society’s addiction to what has been termed a ‘CrackBerry’. It lists the many ways that the BlackBerry addiction has ‘interfered’ and changed our lives.

The BlackBerry is just one of the many pieces of technology that we are now fortunate enough to have that enhance our ‘Connected’ lives. They have allowed us to take that step forward in being always connected.

Now don’t get me wrong, I agree that if it gets to the stage that you are interrupting social arrangements, meals and discussions to respond to your email, or any of the other definitions of why you would be addicted in the article, then you have taken it a bit far.

But look at the benefits. Productivity has increased allowing business to be conducted away from the office, people can find information on the go, search for directions when they are lost, and are freer if anything to go out, because they don’t have to sit at their computer all day waiting for that one email that requires an immediate response.

I think rather than criticizing the huge amount of people that are using BlackBerry’s and the amount of time spent on them, we should be encouraging people to embrace the technology. All too often we hear of people complain that Generation Y and young children spend too much time sitting in front of the computer. Enabling mobile devices with internet connection removes this desire to sit in front of the computer all day long. It encourages people to leave the screen and head outside, go for a walk and socialise with others.

The article is very interesting, and has lots of information for both points of view, but I think we all know that the technology is here to stay and will continue to improve.

So if you are addicted to your BlackBerry, make sure you try control it in some ways and set your self some rules or boundaries such as:
• Don’t respond to emails during conversations with people or at meals unless it is necessary or urgent
• Draw a line between what is family & friends time and what is BlackBerry time
• Every once and a while, leave it at home when you go out.

Remember, if you didn’t have it people would have to wait for you to get home to your computer to respond to an email, so just because you have a BlackBerry, doesn’t mean you have to get to that email straight away.

I am 100% in favour of BlackBerry’s and think they are a really great invention. But like anything else, remember to use them in moderation.

If you have a BlackBerry, let us know your thoughts on this. It would be great to hear your opinion on whether or not you are addicted to your BlackBerry.

Related post: iPhone or BlackBerry?

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TechCrunch has announced the details for this years conference, titled, ‘TechCrunch50’.

TechCrunch50 will be from the 8th-10th September 2008 in San Francisco, California, USA.

The conference is going to be a 3 day conference with the launch of 50 new start-ups.

The opportunity that this conference presents for start-up businesses, and those trying to secure venture capital is just incredible.

Entrepreneurs, if you have an idea, are getting a business off the ground, or are keen to see what is going to be the next big thing, don’t miss out.

Are you going to be there? Planning to travel for the conference? Let me know. It would be great to hear for you.

I hope I can make it to the conference. Will see what the coming months have in store.

For more information, check out the TechCrunch post.

Welcome ProBlogger Readers

Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger has run a project on Twitter. He collected the best post titles for blogs in March.

I submitted my post, ‘Lessons learned from a stand up comedian’ and he added it to his list. Click here to read the list ‘Re-Tweeted - Top Post Titles’.

So to all the ProBlogger readers, Welcome to my blog.

Thanks so much Darren!

Check out ProBlogger and my post on ‘Lessons learned from a stand up comedian’

Blog.JoshAnstey.com has some really interesting posts coming up this week.

Don’t miss out! Subscribe to my blog

Hello fellow Entrepreneurs,

For anyone that has not yet heard of Earth Hour, Earth Hour is an international event occurring tonight from 8:00pm-9:00pm in your local time, with the aim of promoting the reduction of electricity use and carbon emissions and raising the level of awareness for our environment.

This year, Earth Hour has turned into a global event, with my cities getting on board behind the initiative. Iconic landmarks are going to have their lights turned off to promote Earth Hour, including the Sydney Harbour Bridge, The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Sydney Opera House.

For more information, see these websites:
Earthhour2008.com
Earthhour.org

This is an opportunity for Entrepreneurs to take a different look at their ventures, their start-ups, and businesses, and join a global movement to make a difference. I know most entrepreneurs are environmentally aware and socially responsible, and donating to many charities. This is a chance for everyone to get behind the same cause.

I hope you all get behind this great initiative.

Feel free to reply to this post with any stories you have about earth hour, or other ways that your business has taken that step forward in helping the environment, community or has been socially proactive and responsible.

The entrepreneur community is a very strong and devoted community, determined to do what is best, so I look forward to reading about what you have done.

Have a great weekend, and on behalf of the hundreds of millions of people joining in Earth Hour this year, Thank you!

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